p o l y c h r o m e
by Skitts
Summary: .:seven of seven : complete:. BLUE: she would be lying if she said she cared. .:for d a y j u a n a's contest:.
1. CHERRY

**c h e r r y . . . **

She was an odd, quirky sort of girl. Well, it was almost _silly_ to expect otherwise; she **was** an artist, after all. Temperamental and messy and forgetful and all that good stuff moulded into the shape of a little girl and later on labelled Naminé. Driven by her muses and fuelled with coffee she was twitchy little thing that constantly showed up to school with unhealthy-looking bags under her eyes and energy sources severly depleted. The kindling to her fire, the source of the problem was simple; she was in **love** with drawing and wouldn't ever stop.

To her mother her room, filled with pictures and sketches and scattered with crayons (looking, searching, asking 'where's the blue gone?') was merely clutter. To Naminé it was 'creative clutter'.

To the headmistress her behaviour at school (blinking, zombie-like, asking 'did I _really_ fall asleep in Maths again?') was simply disdain to the establishment and bad attitude. To Naminé it was 'artistic difference'.

To Riku red was simply red and there was no two ways about it (sighing, shaking her head, asking 'Riku, how could you _be_ so ignorant?') but to Naminé it was '**cherry**' thankyou**very**much.

But just because artists don't normally see eye-to-eye with _you_ doesn't necessarily mean you always see eye-to-eye with _them_.

To Naminé her and Riku's relationship was friendship, nothing more (subtle hinting, frowning, asking 'God, haven't you _got it yet_, Nam?') but to Riku... To Riku it was not.

And really now, he couldn't be expected to keep it all in when she was going on about cherry and her lips were so red and then, one minute into her lecture, he had her pinned against a wall and was kissing her passionately because 'your muses aren't the only ones that can make _you_ to do stuff, Nam. There's been a 'muse' in my head telling me to do that for a long time. A long, long time.'

When they broke apart she blushed deeply and darkly; cherry and red all at once, and Riku _still_ couldn't tell the difference and couldn't understand why she'd been making such a fuss in the first place. But then again, she **was** an artist and it was silly to expect otherwise. Just like _he_ was in love and it was silly to keep denying it when it had always been solidly, immovably there just like the cherry-red blush on her face.

**. . . r e d.**


	2. ASH

**a s h . . .**

Alice tossed her blonde hair behind one shoulder in a shower of gold and adjusted the skirts of her blue dress, lips bright red and stockings brilliant white and shoes dull grey covered with mud on the underside. It was only a shame that her eyes were diluted grey and that such a curious person happened to be colour-blind to every around her and everything that made up _her_ herself.

She had tried to ask Axel about colour several times when she felt so inclined to but his answers were never very helpful and hardly enough to sate her inquisitive mind.

"Axel, what does yellow look like?"

"Like… A lighter shade of orange."

"Oh." Sighing, looking up at the ceiling, tapping feet on the floor. Deep breath. "Axel, what does yellow look like?"

And they could play that game for ages, of her innocently asking and him never sure how to answer and maybe she started not to care anymore because it all became routine and it was something to hold on to as her dreams became fraught with madness and hysteria, skeletal cats winding in and out of monochrome fantasies she wished not to take any part in; of butcher knives and wide-eyed insanity and fraught with screaming, flecked with pain and her poor, _poor_ mother and their house as it burnt to the ground and grey smoke as it coiled up into the sky.

One day Alice sat on her chair as a proper lady would with one leg over the over and looked about her white room with curious interest and waited and waited but no Axel came. Instead there was a timid knock on the door and a grey lady with a long dress and an over-sized hair ornament that looked it was eating her pretty little head stepped in, complete with name tag; my name is Nurse Aerith, a great sickening tsunami wave of floral perfume oozing off her pale-grey skin that made Alice gag.

"Where's Axel?" inquired the blonde after her initial coughing fit following the fashion-model apparition's appearance (goodness gracious, why was somebody like _her _working with wide-eyed psychopaths hacking up blood and countless tales of 666 and Satan-is-coming with daily repetition? Slumming, perhaps?) Alice's full bottom lip started to tremble slightly. She was only ten, after all; old enough to sit in a cell taking a cupful of light grey pills and cupful or dark grey pills a day in case she snapped despite guarantees human beings were built to last (maybe she was God's cruel idea of practical joke) but not old enough, it seemed, to stop herself from crying, especially not when Axel had gone and she was _lonely_ and who was Aerith anyway? She didn't like nurses, they were all liars who thought that just because she was blind to colour she was blind to human nature. Like lies. They lied to her all the time ("_This shot won't hurt at all_" but it always **did** and "_I'm sorry about your parents_" but you're **not** and "_I understand what you must be going through_" but you **don't**.) They thought she was too stupid, too crazy, too blind to notice any of this behaviour; the anxious looks covered up by small smiles and she knew they didn't really want to talk to her, not _really_, but they **had** to because their name-tag read 'nurse' and nurses were meant to be caring. No nurse could ever be as caring as that one skinny teenager who helped out every Saturday, especially not this bag of bones with the pristine hair and clothes.

"He… I'm sorry to tell you this, Alice, but… Axel… He's… Not feeling very well at the moment," replied the woman but Alice knows she's lying and her face hardens and fists clench and she wants to walk over to her (calmly) and rip her hair (calmly) and ask her _again_ and _again_ because she's not stupid and she's not blind and she can read everything in Aerith's monochrome face and darting eyes. She's not sorry and she doesn't care and she's already hurting her and she who the hell is she fooling anyway? She doesn't _want_ to Alice; why does she keep looking at the door?

"I think you're lying to me," Alice smiled coolly like a statue and Aerith melts before her because she understands and she's meant to be the mad one but she can read her like a book.

"Well… He's not ill, exactly, he's… Well… It was a _terrible_ fire, Alice, and he was admitted to hospital, doctors did everything they could, but he died."

There's no remorse in her sugar-sweet tones and Alice stays rigid, hands clenched in her lap and eyes narrowed, bitter, and she's sick of being lied to. She's sick. Sick on the inside and sick on the out. A twisted smile plays across her lips as she imagines fire; smoke and ash and screams of her poor mother as she watched their house burn down in all the colours of the rainbow until the grey ashes stained skin and clothes and nestled in her hair and got in her eyes and she coughed and spluttered and couldn't see anymore. Everything was grey.

Something jarred in Alice's throat because Axel could _never_ be grey; he was the one highlight to her dreary, mundane life and even though she couldn't see colour, could barely remember being a little girl and looking at the world and the blue sky and green grass from her bedroom window five years ago, she had painted him in a multitude of reds and oranges and yellows and greens and blues and violets and indigoes and even if she she'd forgotten what they looked like now after all those years she knew they suited Axel. Not anymore.

And Alice sat there and smiled softly, serenely, fists in lap and skirts about her ankles, watching as everything fell down about her, wondering of Wonderlands as it all twisted before her into something hideous and ugly of queens with tentacles and ogresses and dying white rabbits and skeletal cats with large smiles and serrated teeth.

And Alice sat there and wondered; wondered if they had any pills to cure a broken heart.

**. . . g r e y.**


	3. AMETHYST

**. . . a m e t h y s t**

Demyx loved to play the delightful little sunspot to Zexion's rainy day, and even though the lilac-haired boy oftentimes pouted and frowned and folded his arms and said '_leave me alone, Demyx_' he didn't mean it. It was obvious by the small curve of his upper lip and the way he turned his head so nobody would see '_Oh-em-gee is Zexion __**smiling?**__ Is the apocalypse approaching? Or was there a half-price sale on at Hot Topic?_' and the way he said a little too sharply '_that was NOT funny, Demyx_' with voice hitting all the wrong notes. Off key.

He was trying not to laugh and Demyx _knew it_ so he carried on a little more, elaborating with wild, slightly spastic hand movements that caught the little pint-sized teen in the side and made him sigh a little more because '_you just knocked me, Demyx! I'll have a bruise tomorrow!_'

Truth be told, being best friends with such a clumsy haphazardous mish-mash of gangly arms and spidery longs and flailing limbs and '_MAYGAWSH he's so much taller than you he makes you look like a gummi-bear!_' from similar sunspot Selphie was hard work.

Every day Zexion slouched home from school with Converse slapping across chewing gum covered grey sidewalk slabs mind filled with half-formed poetry lyrics about abysses and '_step on a crack, break your mothers back_', clambered up the stairs with such a laboured expression on his face it looked as if his legs were about to snap in a gooey mess of gore and '_I told you eat your breakfast, Zexy, and stop bleeding all over the carpet, I just got that cleaned_' from his mother and stand in front of his bedroom mirror, tugging down his collar and rolling up his sleeves and frowning slightly.

A beautiful array of deep amethyst to violet to purple to lilac stood out in a vibrant shock of colour against his pale skin, all the way up and down his spindly, sick stick arms and chest and stomach and then there were those permanently grazed knees because he'd tripped over Demyx's size nine shoes more times than he could count in flurries of cold hard floor and red hot pain and '_Oh my god I'm such a klutz walking into you like that, sorry Zexy!_' and he'd help the boy up only to elbow him in his mouth and he'd gag and spit up red on the floor like his brain spewed bad poetry and Demyx would wail in despair and '_I'm a horrible, evil person! If you keep being my friend you'll end up in the general hospital!_'

And Zexion turned his head towards his friend with a bloodied-up lip and smiled a true, proper, genuine smile of a smile without any awkward head-turning or looking away, amethyst bruise forming on the side of his mouth and;

'_Demyx, it would hurt a lot more if you _**weren't** _my friend, I can guarantee that._' Pale fingers laced with his neighbours, feeling horribly impossibly small but it was only a small price to pay for feeling so safe and gooey and warm and bending at the knees and maybe he really _should_ eat breakfast and stop skipping meals. But then again, Demyx was always there to remind him if his mother didn't because;

'You may be a stupid sunspot but you're _my_ sunspot, after all.'

**. . . p u r p l e.**


	4. INK

**i n k . . .**

When _Sora_ was little he had a kaleidoscope and he loved it dearly. With every twist and turn a new world of patterns and colour was introduced to his baby blue eyes, a constant treat like candyfloss for his six-year-old soul to prey upon.

When _Kairi_ was little she had a mirror and she loved it dearly. A strange world lurked beyond that glass like frogs under a pond, a land of sharp angles and backwards writing, a constant treat like candyfloss for her six-year-old soul to prey upon.

When_ Sora_ **and** _Kairi_ grew up the world changed of its own accord, colours blurring and merging and twisting and mutating as everything flipped upside down and round and round in swathes of hungry black with golden eyes.

Pieces of (princess) Kairi are pressed against the wall with a beautiful broken face and she smells of dying and decay with cracks up and down her lily-white skin.

Pieces of (anti) Sora are running fingers (claws) through her copper (blood) red hair and his blue (yellow) eyes gleam hungrily like pools of lamplight along grey pavement as he kisses her unresponsive lips and encircles (ensnares) her stick-thin limbs with coils of inky-black darkness.

When the kaleidoscope turns in a flurry of colour and pattern it may be too late for (not) Sora and far too late for (dead) Kairi – inky black fingerprints are left around her face and throat and her ribcage is filled with ash.

Broken girls (covered in black and rust and russet-red) can't breathe, Sora – everybody knows that.

**. . . b l a c k.**


	5. BLUSH

**b l u s h . . .**

Sora. Cute button nose and over-large feet clad in butter-yellow shoes with bright laces. Messy chocolate-brown hair shooting in a multitude of different directions from his strawberry shampoo scented scalp and a bright red jumpsuit.

Very sweet and heart-warming, sort of like a cup of cocoa on a cold winter's day, windows frosted with snow and shivering under a duvet with tingling fingertips with a warm mug of liquid chocolate.

Cute as button, sweet as pie, chubby as a bun and about a thousand other things guaranteed to put you in an early grave or have you shouting for the sick bucket.

Perhaps a little _too_ cute, sweet and chubby for Yuffie's likings.

No, Yuffie was all for older guys who leant against walls as if they had back problems (Yuffie still remembered her first words to him even now; 'hey, you, Quasimodo! Can you get my shiruken back for me?' And she still insulted his name only because it delighted her so to see him blush and look away) and his gunblade (Yuffie still remembered her second words to him even now; 'hey, you, are you sure you're not over-compensating for something?'. And she still insulted his weapon of choice because it delighted her so to see him blush and look away).

No, Yuffie was all for older guys who still flushed pink over scar-slashed faces when you casually, almost off-handedly so, happened to mention their love for the Dalmatians in the house down the road and how _devastated_ he was when they went missing ("Damn heartless!").

Yuffie was all for guys like that.

Well, only one guy.

Squall.

**. . . p i n k.**


	6. LEMON

**l e m o n . . .**

Tifa isn't bitter (oh well that's goddamned lie she _is_)

Well, at least nobody _else _thinks Tifa's bitter ("three heartless walk into a bar. One of them must have seen it!" The words are citrus-soaked from sour lips.)

Not Leon, eyes staring up at the ceiling like he knows all the answers but then why does he so desperately cling to that little boy Squall who couldn't save everyone or anyone; why is he so defiant when stating his (new) name? ("It's Leon.")

Not Yuffie, fallen too far in that Alice-in-Wonderland mirror of vanity, wrapped up in her reflection and lost in her own large brown eyes painstakingly lined with mascara ("I'm the great ninja Yuffie!")

Not Aerith, grime and dirt playing hide-and-seek under her fingernails and pink-and-white attire streaked with spider-leg lines of mud with the appealing scent of earth and roses clinging off every curvaceous corner, bright like the sunshine (or dark like rain clouds when nobody else is looking) that feed her precious flowers ("We're so happy to see you!")

Not Cloud, living in the years long past, of sepia-tainted photographs and faded faces nobody else can remember unless they pull a special thinking face with one hand to their lower lip and go "Oh yeah, Sephiroth. That guy." ("I'm searching too.")

And not for you, Tifa.

Not Sora, still a young child (but he's seen more than most adults) with large blue eyes (holding more pain than an emo-inspired ocean of blood) and high hopes spiralling upwards and upwards like a balloon without a string (because he **will** find Riku and see Kairi and wipe out the heartless and return home – a seemingly impossible task but, one look at his earnest little face radiating confidence, Tifa's sure he'll do it) and he _hurts_, hurts so much it's unbearable and Tifa hurts with him because she's a warrior too and she knows how it feels like.

("Don't worry, Tifa. You'll get your happy ending one day.")

("It's not me I'm worried about, Sora.")

Suddenly Tifa's not so bitter anymore.

**. . . y e l l o w.**


	7. SAPPHIRE

**s a p p h i r e . . .  
**_**Romance**_** is ****breaking**** every **_**heart**_** in t w o,;**

Selphie likes being lied to.

After all, the truth is so _boring_.

She doesn't want to hear that she's plain (even though she is, especially when compared with Kairi's red hair and Kairi's violet eyes and Kairi's vibrant personality and Kairi, Kairi, **Kairi**).

She doesn't want to hear that she's weak (even though she is, especially when compared with Riku's large muscles and Riku's wooden sword and Riku's immense strength that makes even his own childish weapon look _good_ as he dances gracefully about the battlefield and Riku, Riku, **Riku**).

She doesn't want to hear that she's small (even though she is, especially when compared with Sora's large personality and Sora's huge smile in the face of adversity and, oh God, Sora's _keyblade_ because Sora saved the world, don't'cha know, doesn't everyone know?, and Sora, Sora, **Sora**).

And so Tidus sits there and tells her pretty lies (but it never crosses her head that maybe they're more than lies when Tidus says them. Maybe in his eyes she's so pretty already no lie could improve upon what he already sees in her. He tells her she's perfect every day).

But Selphie _wasn't_ lying when she told Sora, ages and ages ago on the dock looking out to sea, that over her dead body would she ever share a papou fruit with Tidus.

Selphie doesn't like telling lies because she knows Tidus will find out one day, and when he does it'll break his heart ("because I really _meant_ everything I said, Selph, and I thought you did too").

But she'd be lying if she said she cared.

**Casting **_**shadows**_** in a ****pale**** shade of  
****. . . b l u e**

* * *

**a/n: **the only reason this has anything to do with blue is that the lyrics at the beginning and end are taken from a song called blue by the birthday massacre x3 and thus concludes this one-shot collection. I hope you enjoyed 


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